Estimation Defaults—411

Earlier releases of EViews (before 5.0) can read single precision, but not compressed files.

Hint: There’s no reason not to use compression, so use it, unless someone using a version of EViews earlier than 5.0 needs to read the file, in which case—don’t.

Estimation Defaults

The Estimation options dialog lets you set defaults for controlling the iteration process and internal computation of derivatives in nonlinear estimation. There’s nothing wrong with the out-of-the-box defaults, although some people do prefer a smaller number for the Convergence value. You can also set these controls as needed for a specific

estimation problem, but if you do lots of nonlinear estimation, you may find it convenient to reset the defaults here.

Quick Review—413

ual graph, so they’ve effectively already been discussed at length in Options, Options, Options in Chapter 6, “Intimacy With Graphic Objects.” One of the pages, Exporting, doesn’t appear as an option for an individual graph, but we discussed this tab in the same chapter in The Impact of Globalization on Intimate Graphic Activity.

The default format for saving graphics is Enhanced Metafile (*.emf). EMF is almost always the best choice. However, you may want to switch to Encapsulated PostScript (*.eps) if you send output to very high resolution devices. If you’re a LaTeX user, you may also find eps files easier to deal with. You may also save files to Graphics Inter-

change Format (*.gif), Portable Network Graphics (.png), Joint Photographic Experts Group (*.jpg), Portable Document Format (*.pdf), and Bitmap (*.bmp) files. GIF and PNG files are particularly useful if you wish to include graphs in web pages.

Quick Review

If fine-tuning doesn’t ring your chimes, you can safely avoid the Options menu entirely. On the other hand, if you’re regularly resetting an option for a particular operation, the Options menu will let you reset the option once and for all.

414—Chapter 18. Optional Ending